Day: April 16, 2013

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2013 RV Owners Lifestyle Seminar

Late June, I’ll be talking about my trip this winter at the RV Owners Lifestyle Seminar in Kelowna, BC. This is the third time I’ve been invited and I knew if I said no again, I’d never get another chance.

From the topics page:

The presenter will share tips on how to find free or inexpensive places to park your RV, whether it be overnight or for several weeks, by providing examples and resources from her 2012-2013 trip through several states, including Louisiana and Texas.

I’m really excited to attend the seminar as it sounds like a really fun weekend. That said, it has thrown my summer completely off kilter. This is a volunteer gig, so I’m not sure yet how I’ll finance all that time off to prepare and attend the seminar. I am thinking of looking for sponsors, although I have no idea of how to go about doing that.

The RV Owners Lifestyle Seminar is like attending RV College for a long weekend, with lots of things to learn and plenty of opportunities for socializing. If you’re thinking of being in BC this summer, maybe as you’re heading up to Alaska, you might want to squeeze this event into your calendar.

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I Can’t Believe This Weather

I crossed into the United States five months ago yesterday. So I have four weeks left to get back north. From where I’m sitting, I need four solid days of driving to make it to my property. I’m exhausted just thinking about such a cannonball run!

When I saw that the weather this spring was going to suck, I gave up on my plan of a leisurely few weeks of tourism through the plains. Instead, I thought to spend a few days here in Dallas, one night around OK City, two or three nights in Wichita, and then sit at a donation-only campground near Omaha for three days of clear weather to make a dash for the border.

But Wichita is still freezing at night and Omaha is still getting snow. My village is still sitting at well below freezing during the day.

Ms. Cinnamon, gracious host that she is, is in absolutely no hurry to send me on my way, bless her. I am really grateful to be pondering my options in hot sticky weather! But the fact is, I do need to get going and four weeks are going to speed by. And at the rate we’re going, even if the weather warms up a little, I am still going to be heading into frosty nights and then a sodden piece of property that will turn to liquid mud in short order.

What I need to do hit me like a ton of bricks last night: I should be going straight west across the mountains (UGH) and then north into the Okanagan. I need (spoiler alert) to be in Kelowna in late June anyway so if I can find a cheap place to hang out for two months (big IF), this plan doesn’t really set me off course. But Osoyoos, yuck!

The hiccup is that I have the money to get back to Saskatchewan from here ($600ish), but it could cost me upwards of $1,200 to get to BC through Nevada and California, then up into Oregon and Washington. I just don’t have an extra $600 right now. As you might remember, I gave my truck $600 in New Orleans.

I’m also not too keen about doing any mountain driving. Croft and Norma are presently stranded in Las Vegas, but I’ll be watching their route west closely when they get going again.

There is of course the option of extending my US trip by going to Mexico for a month or two. If I was of retirement age, that’s what I’d do. But I don’t want to push my luck with US Customs. While such behaviour would follow the letter of the law, it would be in violation of its spirit. I told customs I was heading back to Canada in April and that’s what I’m doing, with no excuses. I don’t want to jeopardize my fall crossing.

I picked a great winter to go south, but the worst kind of spring. 🙁